Going ‘Alone’: Survivalist Nicole Apelian On Being A Woman On History’s Harrowing Hit

History’s hit survival series Alone returns tonight for a second season — and the show is upping the ante in a surprising way. Yes, it will still follow a group of outdoors experts dropped in the Vancouver wilderness, forced to survive on their own without help from each other or a camera crew. However, this season the playing field is a little bit different: Now there are women.

Nicole Apelian is one of three women competing on Alone this season. She’s an anthropologist, biologist, survival skills trainer, bush expert, and so much more. She told us that she was proud to be part of this new diverse Alone cast. Apelian said, “It was really important for me and the other women to be able to be there to be role models for girls growing up. Because I think that they really need to see that anything is possible. That’s an important role model to provide for not just girls, but boys, too. It’s an important message to get out to the world.”

Apelian told us that the producers sought her out for season two and she was thrilled to be involved. She prepped for the show by going off alcohol, caffeine, and carbs for a month to help her body get used to the diet she’d have. However, the biggest challenge would be heat.

“I practiced a lot,” she told us. “For instance, I knew that fire starting was a real issue for people last year. It’s such a wet environment in Vancouver Island. So for a month prior to the show, I would strip bark and take that bark and dip it in a tub of water overnight and then in the morning I’d take this soft, wet cedar bark and I would make it into a tinder bundle until it was dry enough so that I could get a fire with my ferro rod.”

We asked Apelian if she thought there was a stereotype against women in the world of survival training. “Of course there is. There’s a big stereotype against women,” she said bluntly. “If you look at shows, across the board, there are very few shows that highlight women in a positive way doing these particular skills. I’d say the one exception is my friend Cat Bigney is on The Great Human Race.”

“I think Alone is really the first show that’s put women on an equal playing field with men and are allowing them to really shine through. They’re not giving us more than the men or changing the rules. They’re pitting women against men on an equal playing field and I really think you’re going to see women rise to the top just as men would.”

When it comes to surviving in the wild, men and women are obviously on equal, but different, footing. Apelian said that the irony was that the same attributes some may perceive to weaknesses in women might actually be their biggest assets for survival.

“I’ve seen some comments online that [say] ‘Oh, that skinny girl’ — meaning me — ‘isn’t going to make it because she doesn’t have any body fat. She’s going to starve to death.'” Apelian admitted. “But on the other hand, if you’re slim and fit, you don’t need as many calories. So if I’m gathering the same amount of calories as a man who weighs twice my weight, I’m actually going to do better because I need fewer calories to be able to survive.”

“I think [men and women] can all do things rather equally,” she said. “True, I wasn’t able to maybe lift things that were quite as heavy as men, but I was able to lift my logs pretty well. I cut my firewood just fine.”

Apelian said that she had a blast working on the show and that she loved being alone in the wilderness. But the absolute best part might have been her competition. “Although all the contestants technically were competing against each other, it never felt like that. It felt like we were one heart, one mind. Going out there all of us really [wanted] to test our skills and to see how we would adapt in that sort of situation. The whole time I was hoping everyone else was doing really well, too. A lot of survival shows really pit people against each other and what I like about this show is that they don’t.”

So what was the biggest challenge? (Was it the bears? We’d think it would be the bears.) “For me, the biggest thing was being away from my children and knowing I might be away from them for a very long time.”

Apelian says it’s not too late for us city slickers and suburbanites! “The golden thing is you can start learning this any time. I’ve known lots of people who start studying bush skills, bush craft, survival skills, whatever you want to call them… really late in life. As long as you have good teachers and are willing to learn, you can learn anything.”

If you want to learn more about Apelian and the skills she teaches you can visit her official site by clicking here.

Season two of Alone premieres on History tonight at 9/8 C. You can live stream the channel on Sling TV.